(Job 15:7-13) "Were You The First Man Born" Part 2/4

What if the majority is confidently wrong and the lonely sufferer is closest to the truth? We dive into the book of Job as a mirror for modern faith, wrestling with the gap between knowing the letter and living the Spirit. Job’s friends are educated, certain, and united — and still miss the heart of what God is doing through affliction. We unpack why consensus and age don’t certify truth, how pride hides inside tidy formulas, and why suffering often becomes the classroom where dependence and discernment actually grow.

Together, we challenge a common reflex: treating affliction as proof of secret sin. Instead, we explore how hardship can be a tool for purification and a pathway to wisdom that comfort rarely provides. We map out practical guardrails for testing teachings: demand consistency across Scripture, alignment with God’s nature, and a clear confession of Christ’s unique role as mediator and advocate. When platforms turn into stages and charisma outshouts clarity, these guardrails keep us anchored to what’s real.

We also press into hot-button areas like tongues, continuing revelation, and appeals to tradition. Does a doctrine require new revelation? Does it push angels or leaders into roles reserved for Christ? Does it rely on crowd size, celebrity, or age instead of careful exegesis? With a pastor’s heart and a Berean’s habit, we invite you to trade performative religion for faithful precision. If Job teaches anything, it’s that God can elevate a person through suffering long before the crowd notices. Join us, think deeply, and let the Word shape your reflexes. If this resonated, subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who’s hungry for discernment.

Transcript

Friends Miss The Heart Of Job

SPEAKER_04 0:00

Said that you said Jonathan and Mariah, you know, these guys and brother Pat, these guys are obviously intelligent men. Um, but they've missed the mark. You know, they're accusing Job right here. Do you have some sort of secret knowledge? Are you the only one, you know, who knows anything about God? And the thing is, is as Mariah said, Job does. He has a relationship with God. These men, this is why everyone's saying these men are, you know, men of God, yet there is, they might know God, but to me, they're no different than the Pharisees. They have a A plus B equals C, uh, you know, and this, you know, this is how God works, and they get the knowledge from the elders that was handed down. It seems as though these men, none of them have the personal relationship to know uh, you know, like we we talked about, like uh the resurrection, different things that Job is aware of that he speaks of. These men have no idea, and their pride won't let them be told. How many people do we come across today who know scriptures back to front, they can recite them to you, but and but they're believing in the pre-trib rapture. You know what I'm saying? And it it's it so being intellectually uh book smart, let me just say, um, isn't gonna cut it when it comes to scripture. What does scripture say? You know, God uses the foolish to shame the wise. And I'm I am um more than happy to be one of those foolish that that he's given the knowledge to. You know what I'm saying? I am I'm honored and I'm blessed by that. So I don't ever um would claim to know more, but what I will say is I I do know the character of my God, and I'm sure of it. Right, just like Job seems to be, it's not so black and white. So that's all I wanted to say.

Letter Versus Spirit Of Truth

SPEAKER_01 2:16

No problem, sister. Uh go ahead, Pat, before I get to verse nine, go ahead. You wanted to add something to what you said.

SPEAKER_05 2:22

Jonathan, maybe you could give me some insight on this. I don't think these guys are trying to be villains. I think they see themselves. Man, I've got to be honest. People might hate me for this, but I see myself and all three of these friends. Like some of these things, it's really making me reflect about being a more discerning person. And um just how many times in life have you just has somebody told you something and you've just assumed they're they're just dumb? That's right. You know what I mean? And it it and then you haven't you haven't even really given it your full attention. You've made judgment without uh without godly in the process to come to your conclusions. I I I really feel like a lot of times villains see themselves as good guys. I think all three of these friends think that they're good guys. You know what I mean? And I I see it as a warning. Am I off base here? That we can easily be any one of these guys.

Pride, Knowledge, And Blind Spots

SPEAKER_01 3:39

Right. And I and you know what, brother Pat, I'll tell you this much. If we get through this book, and we will get to what Lord willing, we get through this book. If you only see yourself in a place of Job, you didn't understand the book. You you you have to walk away seeing what seeing parts of you in these other men. Because I agree with you 100%. These these guys, they were not stupid men. They were they were they were intellectual men, they were smart men. They knew the, they knew the they they knew the truth, they knew the doctrines. Like I said, they had the orthodox down, they had the traditions down, they had the rights down, they had all that stuff down, but they didn't understand the spirit of these things. They understood the letter, but not the spirit of it. And so they and they and they look and they judge like the foolish man always does. They judge, the foolish person judges from the outside, always. They don't know how to look at the inner part of themselves or the inner part of other men. They don't they're not concerned with that. They're concerned about they're concerned about their own agenda in a religious setting. They want to be, they want to be spiritually elevated in the eyes of others. And here's the thing, especially those who are in these other positions where people are listening to them. Like, for instance, you know, you have pastors and and you have the you know these great men of God who are always nonstop getting challenged. Nonstop. Getting haranged and harassed at every turn. And these are the people that that that that people like these friends here, they sort of want to bump you off their perceived pedestal that they see you standing on. But Job is sitting in the dust covered in boils, sitting in ashes. But he is the one that is speaking in elevated spiritual pitch. He's telling things the way that it is, and he's speaking from the standpoint of someone who has learned his lesson, not just from his orthodoxy, but also from his experience that he's going through with this affliction. They mistake the fact that a person can be educated by the Lord when they are going through affliction. They only see affliction being a consequence of sin, not a tool for building up and purifying. That's what they missed. And if we're not careful, this is what we too will miss. Go ahead, Brother Jeffrey, then I'm gonna go to verse 9. Go ahead, one more, and I'm gonna go to verse nine.

SPEAKER_03 6:42

Okay, Jonathan, I want to ask you and the panel a question. All right. Now, everybody, please hear my heart here and think for just a brief second about what your answer is. What do you learn more from? Blessing and prosperity, which we all look forward to, or do we learn more when we're in times of affliction? So think about it. I mean, we all want to say, oh, well, I learned more when I'm from affliction. Well, that hopefully is the right answer from you. But we gotta be careful here. I mean, if if we're being honest with ourselves, I I can say this. I have learned more from times of affliction. Have I learned things in times of prosperity and plenty? Of course. But there's been times where I've just been backed, God's had me backed into a corner, and he said, Okay, Jeffrey, now look, this is what I want you to learn. I want you to apply this to learn this. And there's nowhere to go. Right. That's when we start learning. Isn't it tragic, though? Here's my point, Jonathan. Isn't it tragic that Jonathan that God has to get us into that point, that being trapped, Jonathan, in order to get his point across to us? Right.

Seeing Ourselves In Job’s Friends

Affliction As A Teacher

SPEAKER_01 7:59

See, what one of the things you that you said, brother, and this is and this is common. This is common. This is the norm. Like you the when you asked the first question, you you asked the question about when do we something like when do we get closer to God or something like that? And you said, is it when we have blessing or is it when we have, et cetera, et cetera, the affliction, which I agree, it is when you go through these trials. But see, here's the problem. Think about this. The question that you asked, it assumes that everything that is good constitutes being blessed. And and it is true that having you know food on the table, having a home, all these are blessings. But more often than not, we distinguish the blessing of prosperity from the blessing of affliction. And this is the different mindset, you know, to be able to see that affliction as well is a blessing. This is why Job would tell his wife, shall I not take the good with the with the bad? You know, there's something in that statement because Job, whether or not he's he's realizing or not, he understands something. He understands that whatever falls from God's hands, he he accepts it as something coming from God. Anything that you're given by God to draw you into a closer relationship with Him is a blessing, particularly, and especially so if it is affliction. Because affliction demands dependence if you're going to persevere. Affliction demands dependence if you are going to persevere. But from the perspective of God, Job, he's gonna see that this was all for his gain. Look at verse nine. Eliphaz goes on and he continues to say to Job, Job, what do you know that we don't know? What do you know that we don't know? What do you understand that is not in us? Now, this is weird because when you think of the fact that, and the second part of this, the the second question, they say, What do you understand that is not in us? Now keep in mind, they were saying that Job has no wisdom. Basically, you don't know anything. But now they're saying, now he says, What do you understand which is not in us? But he's making an appeal to the collective group. This is his argument here. This is Eli Fazer's argument. Job, what do you know? Notice this, Job, what do you know that we don't know? Eli Faz is not just talking about himself, he's telling Job, what do you know that we don't know? This group, what do you understand, which is not in all of us? He's making an argument from numbers. Christians, let me tell you something. If you live your godly life and find comfort in being amongst the mass, and and I'm not talking about the I'm not talking about the unbelieving world, I'm talking about the greater part of Christianity. Because for the most part, the greater part of Christianity is not walking in lockstep with the truth. The greater part of it, we have to struggle daily to remain in alignment with biblical truth, with God's word, with the Spirit of God that dwells with us within us. Things that are important when it comes to understanding Christ. A few weeks back when I did that message about that one preacher who was saying that God accepts intercession and advocacy from angels on the behalf of men. And when I spoke against that, I got harangued by a lot of that dude's supporters because supporting him was more important than the truth. When you are assigning works that only Christ can do to anything, especially a created being, you are telling a flat out, out and out lie. And it is contrary to the scriptures, and that is a false teaching. There is no mediator, no advocate, no intercessor for us to God, other than the Lord Jesus Christ. Plain and simple. When you say that someone else has that responsibility and partakes in that responsibility alongside Christ and give that credit to angels, you are lying to men. I don't care how earnest you are in your expression of it. Cannot endorse lies, especially when it comes from a pulpit. Especially when it comes from a pulpit. It's a shame, and it ought not to be so. So they appeal to the collective. All of us. He assumes that consensus consensus equals truth. He believes that if the majority believes this, it must be true. If the majority believe it, it must be true. You can't be the only one believing contrary to this truth, and you be right. It doesn't matter if God is right. The word of God, it matters that they are right. Now keep in mind, they will say that they are led by the Holy Spirit, that they have been students of the Word of God, that they've learned from the greatest teachers ever. And you might say the same thing. Somebody's gonna be right, or both are gonna be wrong. Both are not gonna be right. And he makes his eye, he makes his argument by way of consensus and assumes that that equals truth. And as a result, he dismisses Job's experience that he's going through as irrelevant. In Eliphaz's mind, there's no way that the experience that Job is going through, like Brother Jeffrey said, they didn't go through this. Job is going through this. So Job is getting insight into something in his relationship to God as a result of this affliction that they have not gone through and are not going through. So that means that means that there's a possibility that there's something in what Job is going through that God is communicating to him in this uh environment of affliction. That doesn't cross their mind. But listen, we should also understand their frailty and their imaginations. We have to understand it. There are certain people that you just can't reason with and you have to just let them go. There are certain people that there's certain people that you're just not gonna be able to reach. Maybe somebody else will, maybe you will later when that person grows up or whatever, but there's certain people you're just not gonna be able to reach, they're just not going to get it. And sometimes they have to encounter God themselves before they realize that they were in error. Personal suffering can illuminate truths that are unseen by the observer who is comfortable. There's something that those who are comfortable, who have prosperity, who have health, who have wealth, who have their kids, who have their homes, everything is right. There's something about being in that comfortable position that keeps you from being able to see things that can be understood through the medium of affliction. These guys don't get it. And so I don't think that Job's response, I want to believe that his response, if he was one of these comforters, I think that I would want to believe that he might have been different in this, and I believe that he would because of the way he's handling this. But Job, unbeknownst to himself, unbeknownst, unbeknownst to his friends, and certainly unbeknownst to the devil himself, Job is being elevated before their very eyes, and no one can perceive it. Not even Job himself. Not even Job himself. Go ahead, Brother Jeffrey.

Consensus Isn’t Truth

SPEAKER_03 17:58

Jonathan, going back again to verse 9 that you just read a moment ago, Eliphaz says, What do you know that we do not know? What insights do you have that we do not have? When I first read that verse and thought about it, Jonathan, it almost seems like Eliphaz is saying to Job, Who the hell, excuse me, who the H E D L do you think you are lecturing us? You're in sin up to your eyeballs, and then you proceed to try to tell us what's that we're wrong? Again, I just the the air flat out arrogance of these guys with their knowledge, they have, yes, the misapplication of it is just absolutely confounding here. And yet, Job, as you pointed out, is wisely dealing with it. Right. And there is a lesson for us right there. I mean, we're gonna get affliction on a level we haven't seen yet, but it's coming for us in this day and age we're living in. There, so there's a lesson for us. We're gonna get this and more. We've got to be able to deal with it with love and grace like Job has. Amen, brother.

SPEAKER_01 19:10

So in verse 9, in verse 9, you see Eliphaz appealing to Job to make his case from the standpoint of a consensus. Because him and his friends are all in agreement, and their minds is three, four against one. And so there's no way that the consensus group can be incorrect and that Job be right. You know, in the previous verse, they they you know, Eliphaz appealed to sarcasm in verse 7. In verse 8 and 9, he deals with he deals with um Job's not. Having this singular understanding that he only has. And in verse nine, it talks about the fact that the consensus, the group, the truth is in numbers. Truth is almost never found in the numbers. Generally speaking, like brother, like brother, like Sister Barbara says, mob mentality, you have the greater part of Christianity. They're into their tongues, they're into dispensationalism, they're into their spiritual gifts, they're into they need to be water baptized, they're into losing their salvation, all these things that are contrary to the scriptures. That's the majority of Christianity. God is not sovereign, man's free will is. This is the great, this is, these are the greater things that are believed in the masses of Christianity. Fully aware that the things that I spend here night after night talking to all of you about and that we exchange about, I am fully aware that the majority of Christianity think I'm a fool. Think I'm telling lies.

SPEAKER_02 21:31

Might brand me a false teacher. I'm telling you.

Experience, Suffering, And Insight

SPEAKER_01 21:40

Truth is never in the numbers. And you need to ask yourself who finds you in alignment with them. Because when though when you have great numbers of people in alignment with you, you have to ask yourself about what they believe and what they're talking about. Because you will find, if you are really a student of God's word, that a lot of these things that they talk about just don't make any sense. And if you talk to any 10 of them who are in agreement with each other, they themselves will disagree about how they come to their conclusions. But it is incumbent upon all of us who are believers to pursue biblical precision, understanding the truth of God, understanding how to apply it, and you have to understand why what you believe, why it makes sense, and how it's consistent throughout scripture, not just in this isolated particular passage you're talking about. It has to be consistent with the rest of scripture. It has to be consistent, as we discussed last night, with the nature of God. It has to be consistent with God's nature. If it's contrary to his nature, it can't be true. Can't be true. So they say here in verse 9, Job, what do you know that we don't know? What do you understand that's not in us? Then now they're appealing not to the truth, they're appealing to the fact that the majority of them believe this way, and therefore that must carry weight. If more people believe that which is contrary to what you're saying is true, you can't be right. Consensus is always where the truth is resident. Look what they say. Look what Eliphaz says in verse 10. He tells, he continues his argument to Job, telling him that basically he doesn't know anything and doesn't know what he's talking about. Verse 10, he says, he says to Job, with us, with us, the consensus are both the gray-headed and the very aged men, much older than your father. So now they're moving on from consensus and saying we're gonna add more weight to our argument against you, and we're going to appeal to the age of the men who are speaking against you. Now, age is treated as the conclusive authority. Not only age in the sense of the gray head, but age also in the sense of aged in your learning. Christians, don't think for a second that just because you've been a Christian for three, four, five years, don't think for a second that somebody has an advantage over you because they've been a Christian for 50 years. That is no indicator that you have a hold on the truth. Your age has nothing to do with it. The number of people you agree with has nothing to do with the truth. You cannot establish the truth by consensus, and you cannot have that truth ratified by somebody simply because they're older or they've been a Christian longer. Charles Spurgeon began preaching at the age of 14 years old. Nobody to this to date, outside of Christ himself, has been able to communicate the truth of the Word of God in the simplest terms than Charles Spurgeon in my mind. Outside of the apostles and the Lord Jesus Christ, Charles Spurgeon was truly a prince in speaking the truth in a way that he made these heavy doctrinal things, he was able to distill them down and to articulate them in a way that everybody can feed on him.

Age And Authority Questioned

SPEAKER_02 26:23

He was a brilliant man, a brilliant preacher, a genius mind, and he started preaching at 14 years old. What a gift. What a gift.

SPEAKER_01 26:41

And today, the greater part of Christianity, we're walking around like a bunch of buffoons. Very few people, very few people have an aptitude today to communicate the truth of God. When I look at the numbers, when I look at some of the godly men that we've lost, and in and as far as people who I esteem highly, you know, there's some people who I've lost that some of you don't know, but you definitely know R.C. Sproul, you definitely know John MacArthur, you definitely know Bodie Baco. Great men of God. You know, you have James White today, champion of the truth. You have Paul Washer, a champion of the truth, and there are others, but these guys are prominent. You have Joel Beake. There's not a lot left. And again, there are there are those 7,000 that haven't bowed the knee, so to speak. But the question is, where are you going to be on this roster? What are you going to do? What are you and I going to do to be effectual in the Lord's kingdom? Showing ourselves diligent in understanding God's truth and being willing to communicate it when we do. Don't be one of those people waiting for somebody else to do it. Because when we sit down, when we sit down, people like these guys that we see on this platform and other places, they will take the stage because they can't wait to take the stage. And I said stage on purpose. It's not a pulpit, it's a stage. Performative Christianity. That's all it is. Celebrity Christians, celebrity pastors, Mike Todd, and T.D. Jakes and Philip Anthony Mitchell. They're all in the same camp. That Hillsong guy, Stephen Furtick, all these all these guys, Joyce, whatever her name is, and then the Paula lady in the White House. These are not serious people.

SPEAKER_02 29:21

These are not serious people. They're all phonies.

Performative Christianity Called Out

SPEAKER_01 29:32

And there'll be somebody who doesn't like saying that. Here you go, Joyce Myers. There'll be somebody, oh, he's speaking against the brethren. Oh my god. No, I'm not speaking against the brethren. I might be speaking against your brethren, but I'm not speaking against my brethren. These people are not serious people. They're entertainers. They're in it for the money. Copeland, Olstein, all these guys. Benny Hinn, Creflow Dollar, and these guys can't get out of it. And men will bend themselves in any kind of a pretzel that they can to get on a stage and be considered a preacher or pastor. I'm no pastor.

SPEAKER_02 30:17

I'm a layman just like all of you. I have no pulpit. I have no pastorate. I don't claim any divine calling. None of that. But what I'm not gonna do is stand by and do nothing.

SPEAKER_01 30:43

When I have the wherewithal to do. As far as my concern, as far as my concern is, what we do here, we are on the street. This is the street. This is outside. This is out there where we are all where people are really, where they're really at.

SPEAKER_02 31:08

These are the streets.

SPEAKER_01 31:16

Verse 10, he says, We are both gray-headed and very aged men, much elder than your father. Now we know that the scripture honors the gray head, but it doesn't grant them infallibility. They're not infallible just because they're older. There are some people who can go to school for 17, 18, 20 years, and still come out a simple-minded individual. You could have somebody like Charles Spurgeon who could be gifted with brilliance at 14. It's what God does. Eliphaz mistakes accumulated years for perfect judgment. And he ignores that wisdom requires discernment, not just longevity. True wisdom has an annex to it, true discernment. Verse 11. Is there any secret thing with you? What do you think about this verse, Meg? Verse 11. Are there are the consolations of God small with you? Is there any secret thing with you? How do you interpret them? Meg, you there? Alright. Brother Pat, what do you think?

SPEAKER_05 33:03

Well, um, I've dealt with a lot of Roman Catholics, and so you know what's coming to my mind, man. This type of um I hear a lot appeal to church fathers. You know what I mean? Uh very often uh religious people will they'll they'll try to make arguments that are something like, um, yeah, okay, even if you seem to be biblical, and even if you seem to be bright, and you seem to be interpreting this on the surface, but what you need to understand is there's a generation that came before you that was much more wise, and they had the real knowledge. In fact, some of these people lived during the time of the apostles themselves. Who are you to interpret the word of God? And I I kind of see a little bit of uh that appeal to legacy, you you know, to to just to you're just not capable of proclaiming the truth. That's why you need to go along with the crowd, right?

Precision, Consistency, And God’s Nature

SPEAKER_01 34:06

Right. He's saying here, he's going, listen, he he's he's saying, we have been around the block. We know the history, we have the consensus. Do you not find consolation in this? But here's what he says he takes it a step further. He says, are the cons he calls what you know the consensus and the agedness of them all. He says that these that they have, what they have, are the consolations of God. In other words, they're telling Job, what we're telling you, Job, comes from God. He doesn't even blink about it. He's he's like, he's he's put it out there. What we have the consensus, we have the age behind us, we have the wisdom. And so, how is it, Job, that you can reject the consolations of God? Do you do you belittle what we have as a collective? We are telling you what is wrong with you. How do you reject this? We are telling you what you need to do. These consolations that we have, these come directly from God. See, this is what people always want to do. They need to, when they can't convince you, they want to try to validate themselves as being divinely called, supernaturally called to communicate things. To communicate things. And he's asking, are you gonna re he he basically what he's saying is this to reject us is to reject God. This is what he's saying. This is what he's saying, Sister Tyson. Go ahead and welcome, sister.

SPEAKER_00 36:02

Thank you. This is the main thing I hear when I'm discussing biblical tongues, opposed to the Babel tongues that we see in the modern day, when I'm ex when I'm showing them the verses that it was the spreading of the gospel and things, they'll tell me, Oh, I'm just not spiritual enough where I can't understand, you know, their prophecy and tongue speaking, and it just grinds my gears because they assume that I'm not spiritual enough, and that's why I'm not speaking in tongues, and it's annoying.

SPEAKER_01 36:36

Yeah, it can be that's really annoying, especially when you consider the fact that a person who believes that they are speaking in tongues, for example, they believe that revelation is somehow still open. And this is what is wrong with tongues. This is what is wrong with it. It means that revelation, God has not finished providing it. On that fact alone, should rule out tongues. Revelation is closed. And here's something else. We see this, like Sister Mariah just said, we see this in Daniel 9 24. Vision and prophecy will be sealed up when Christ came and died on the cross. It was all done. And so what he and so Christ said, it's need for it's needful for me to go that the Holy Spirit may come. And the Holy Spirit came, and the Holy Spirit inaugurated the church and the new administration coming.